You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I never update, and I don't think anybody reads this much, but I'm following the rules anyway...

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request a drabble of any pairing/character of their choosing from me. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level.

I've never written a single word of fanfic, but if you request a pairing/show I like to read, I'll give it a try!

Not as catchy as the Obama video, but certainly more powerful:


"Goodbye to All That (#2)" by Robin Morgan

Goodbye to the double standard . . .

—Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.

—She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains?)

—When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.

—Young political Kennedys—Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.—all endorsed Hillary. Senator Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)


Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .

Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.” Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters). John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?" with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.

Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.

Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.

Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame.

Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?

continued: http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html

I may not truly favor either Democratic candidate, but still I am in love with this video:

WHY is this laughing baby so frickin' hilarious?



My new favorite distraction for when I'm having a bad day and need to laugh. That and icanhascheezburger.com :D

Posted by angrytalkingmuffin on YouTube, the best new show (with Damian Lewis!):

Here's what I'm thinking about the world: each of us has a purpose in life. Maybe we don't know what it is right now, maybe we never totally know what it is. But when we find it, when we feel it, that's what we should spend our life doing.  Maybe it's doing something that entertains others, or teaches them, or helps them, or whatever. But then I'm wondering, what if the purpose we find doesn't involve the world? What if it's totally personal, something the world never sees? What if it's doing something all by yourself, something that doesn't involve anyone else at all? I'm not sure how I feel about that. Maybe because I can't imagine having a purpose for myself that didn't involve other people. But then, maybe nothing in the world is completely separate from other people. Maybe everything will always impact someone else, even if it's in a small way.  But I'm liking the idea of this purpose for one's life because all of us are so unique. We each have special and individual talents and abilities, and we each have individual desires and goals. I think the world is one perfect puzzle, if we each do what we find fulfilling and satisfying, we should be able to improve the world for the better.

And here's what I hate about depression: it keeps me from being able to know myself. It keeps my desires and dreams hidden and murky. It makes me feel like I've lost myself, that I'm just in a shell of a mind, with nothing that I find fulfilling.  It makes me not know who I am.

I feel like our society has a lot to do with depression, and is the main, if not sole, cause of the problems in the U.S. I want to live in a society that's based in real communities.  People actually living and working together and helping each other. Something sustainable, something that's holistic and considers all needs and view points. Something humane.  

It's now Sunday evening. On Saturday morning at 1 am me, Kelly, Jackie, and Sarah got back from Yosemite after what seemed like one of the longest car rides of my life. We all got back safe and sound, and I felt fine while I was driving, but it was still probably pretty stupid of me to drive that much and that late. I'm still pretty tired right now, even though I took a good long nap earlier today. I've got that crazy feeling where you're so tired you feel sick, and my fingers feel all funny, maybe from being clean after being under a few layers of dirt for a couple days.  Backpacking was pretty exhausting, both physically and mentally, so it's nice being back home. I'm enjoying the cats. I'm sort of falling back into the mode I was in before the trip, where I'm pretty unfocused and unmotivated, I don't know what I want with my life or really what I want to do, and I certainly don't know what I should do.

Before the trip, I sort of discovered God inside me. It's not like how I imagined it would be if I ever found God, I expected it to be all hearing a great voice in my head or having a sudden mind-blowing revelation. Instead it's been this feeling that's been growing in me, of love and reassurance and confidence, as if I'm telling myself all things I want to be told. It feels good, comforting. 

Right now I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to live in the school year.  There's a lot to do, and I've been putting it off really badly. I guess I'm still really uncertain in my decisions.  I sort of wished I had this faith where I knew or was told what I was supposed to do with my life. Instead this emotion in the back of my head is all calm reassurance, rather than any specific path. I guess that's better for me, it means that whatever I do will be the right thing. It just doesn't really feel that way right now.

Beautiful.

 

from postsecret.com

Kids growing up in the U.S. are taught from birth to take pride first and foremost in being an American citizen, not a world citizen. This makes some sense--if we think of the whole world as our community, then it's gonna be a lot harder to justify waging a war against them. Looking at the demographics, most Americans have a lot more in common with other Americans than they do with the rest of the world. The U.S. has a per capita GDP (PPP) of $43,500, where as over 3.8 billion people live on less then US$2 a day. The world's infant mortality rate is 48.87 deaths per 1,000 births, and the U.S.'s is 6.43. So maybe we aren't taught to grieve every global tragedy as if it happened in our neighborhood because most people in the U.S. simply can't conceive of the suffering going on. Or do we just become numb to it? 15 people killed in a bombing is bad, but not as bad as 152. People dying by the thousands of AIDS each day is bad, but maybe not as bad as the thousands being tortured and murdered. Maybe apathy is a defense mechanism. Mourning every cruel, unjust death would be a constant event. You could never stop--you'd be perpetually grieving.

If we're so used to ignoring cruel murders, if that is the norm, then what makes some events grab our attention? Is it the spectacalar numbers, or method in which the people died? Is it the award-winning pictures of starving children, the headlines splashed over newspapers? Do we have to be told when is the appropriate time to be angry, to be distraught, to be guilty? We've all seen the numbers--the millions who die every year, the millions more who live in hopeless poverty, in constant warfare. Is it that there are too many numbers? We no longer see the people behind those numbers--it's just a few digits, a few lines. We don't see the faces, the stories, the lives destroyed.

Maybe we do feel despair, but overwhelming that is hopelessness. Genocides have been occuring for millenia. Starvation has been happening since the beginning of time. Besides, we're all going to die anyway. Does it matter how much we suffer before that happens? There are over six billion people on this planet--so many are suffering, is it possible to change that? The sheer numbers are astounding, how could we possibly have an effect?